Call The Midwife's Jessica Raine: 'you always end up having great conversations in the loo'

Tuesday 15 January 2013 07:57 BST

Call The Midwife star Jessica Raine says she is constantly stopped by fans - especially in the queue for the ladies.

Rada-trained Raine, 30, shot to fame last
year playing Jenny Lee in the hit BBC1 drama, set in the 1950s in London's East
End.

The actress, who returns in the second
series on Sunday, told the Radio Times: "I've never experienced anything
like that wave of attention before. I was appearing in The Changeling at
the Young Vic in London at the end of last year and getting public transport
every day."

"Overnight, I found myself being
stared at on the Tube. You start to look behind you or think, 'Is there
something on my face?' Thank God I really love the show - can you imagine what
it would be like if I didn't?"

Raine added: "The most common place I
get stopped by fans is the ladies'.

"If there's a queue outside, you're
trapped because you need to go. But they're very good bonding places - you
always end up having great conversations in the loo."

The hit drama, based on the memoirs of
Jennifer Worth, landed a second series just two episodes into its run after
record audiences of almost 10 million viewers.

Raine said that she was "initially
worried" that Call The Midwife would be a "chocolate-box,
Sunday-night drama" but that it was saved by "gritty" elements.

She said viewers would find her alter-ego
has become more "confident" and "even rather bossy" in the
second series.

The actress said of filming scenes with
babies: "This time, Miranda (Hart) got a wee-er, and I got a poo-er...In
the Christmas special, during the birth scene at the beginning, the baby
decided to poo on the lovely girl giving birth.

"Because we needed to get the take,
we just had to keep going as if it was the most wonderful thing on Earth!"

Raine admitted: "I do go through
phases of feeling broody. When the babies are there, I go gaga over them and
everyone says, 'You're broody'.

"I certainly love getting to know the
babies if I'm going to be working with them. I must admit during the last
series, I fell in love with one. I could have taken him home," she joked.

This year, Raine also plays Emma Grayling
in Phantom Of The Hex, the first episode in the new series of Doctor Who: "I hadn't realised what an
institution Doctor Who is. I got offered the part and didn't think that much
about it.

"Then you go on set and you see this
blue police telephone box, and suddenly the weight of what you're doing hits
home."

Raine's co-star Hart told the magazine
that she relished the fact that her Midwife alter-ego was experienced with men.

"Normally, I'm the one fawning over
the man, but in Call The Midwife I'm the experienced woman," she said.

"There's a bit in the new series
where the girls and I go to see South Pacific at the cinema. And during the
love scene, Chummy leans down and whispers to her friends: 'Yes girls, I know
all about that.' I love it that sweet Chummy gets there first!"